as was their position on the eternity of the world.
Al-Ghazali’s main critique of the Ismaili Shia, who
were posing a serious threat to Sunni hegemony
during the 11th and 12th centuries, was that they
gave too much aUthority to their imams. Believ-
ers only had to recognize God’s existence and
adhere to the sUnna of mUhammad to conduct
their lives. Moreover, al-Ghazali cautioned against
allowing commoners to engage in theological or
philosophical speculation because it would harm
their chances for salvation. He also criticized the
exaggerated claims of Sufi mystics, who spoke of
divine knowledge and complete annihilation of
the self in God. Only God can fully know himself,
he wrote, and annihilation, if achieved at all, was
only for the moment.
Al-Ghazali’s contributions to the history of
Islamic thought and mysticism are still being
debated today. Many recognize that his writings
helped give new meaning to Muslim practices by
conjoining them to Sufi values and insights. The
use of logical argumentation in his theological
writings set a standard for later Muslim theo-
logians to follow. Al-Ghazali’s bold criticisms
of Muslim philosophers echoed throughout the
Muslim intellectual world and obliged ibn rUshd
(d. 1198), the Andalusian philosopher-jurist,
to write a retort entitled The Incoherence of the
Incoherence. On the negative side, he may have
contributed to the decline of Islamic philosophi-
cal reflection by the forcefulness of his theologi-
cally based arguments against many of its main
tenets.
See also allah; ethics and morality; ismaili
shiism; philosophy; shaFii legal school.
Further reading: Massimo Campanini, “Al-Ghazzali.” In
History of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Seyyed Hossein
Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 258–274 (London: Routledge,
1996); Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Al-Ghazali’s Path to Sufism:
His Deliverance from Error, al-Munqidh min al-dalal. Trans-
lated by R. J. McCarthy (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae,
2000); W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of
al-Ghazali (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953).
Ghazali, Zaynab al- (1917–2005) the most
important female leader in the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood during the 20th century and founder of
the Society of Muslim Ladies
Zaynab al-Ghazali was the daughter of a mer-
chant and Islamic teacher who was educated at
the famous al-azhar University in cairo, egypt.
She studied the qUran, quranic commentary
(tafsir) and hadith at home in her youth but
never attained more than a secondary school
edUcation. She became a member of Huda
Shaarawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, the coun-
try’s first organized Women’s rights movement.
Dissatisfied with the liberal, secular orientation
of this movement, in 1936, she quit it when she
was 18 years of age and launched the Society
of Muslim Ladies, which sought to promote
piety among women and address social prob-
lems within an Islamic framework. As part of its
d a awa (Muslim outreach) activities, this organi-
zation conducted religious classes for women at
mosqUes, trained them to preach, and provided
social services to the needy. It also published a
journal for Muslim women from 1954 to 1956
called al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim women).
Al-Ghazali said that when the Egyptian govern-
ment forced her to disband the organization in
1964, the association’s membership had grown
to 3 million throughout the country. In 1949,
she joined the mUslim brotherhood at the invi-
tation of its founder, hasan al-banna (d. 1949),
and her society worked in cooperation with the
Muslim Sisters to help families who suffered
from the campaign abd al-nasir, Egypt’s presi-
dent from 1956 to 1970, was waging against the
brotherhood in the 1950s and early 1960s. She
conducted secret meetings with the brotherhood
and their supporters to study Islamic literature
and discuss plans for bringing about islamic
government. She is credited with helping to dis-
seminate the writings of the Islamic ideologist
sayyid qUtb (d. 1966), which were composed
during the years of his imprisonment for engag-
ing in antigovernment activities.K 262 Ghazali, Zaynab al-